Browse by: "U"

he “Agreement for Cooperation Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of India Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy”1 (hereinafter referred to as “U.S.-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement” or “123 agreement”) acknowledges a shift in international strategies and relations in both countries. As to India, it marks the end of nuclear isolation resulting from constraints, embargoes and controls and instead opens the path for nuclear commerce. With respect to the United States it entails a major geo-strategic ally in the evolving South- Asia region and promises large commercial benefits to the U.S. nuclear sector. This so called “nuclear deal” constitutes one of the major political, economic and strategic relationships developing between the two countries since 2001. It will lead to the separation of military and civilian nuclear installations in India, the latter to be placed under the safeguards system of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It thus de facto accepts India in the club of nuclear weapon states within the meaning of the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)2 although it is not party to this treaty, refuses adhering to it, officially possesses nuclear weapons and is not subject to a comprehensive system of safeguards.

Uganda’s economy has undergone major fluctuations from a vibrant economy in the 1960s, to suffering severe macroeconomic imbalances in the 1970s and 1980s, to enjoying an economic revival since the late 1980s. A key focus of recent public financial management reforms has been to improve macroeconomic performance and ensure strict budgetary discipline, in particular through the use of a three-year rolling budgetary plan as early as 1992/93. However, problems with the cash budgeting system undermined efforts to improve budget planning, requiring complementary reforms to cash management and commitment control systems. Reforms have also focused on poverty reduction, expenditure efficiency and effectiveness, financial management and accountability, and transparency and openness.

We examine the relationship between lax monetary policy, access to high-yield bond markets and productivity in the US between 2008 and 2016. Using monetary policy surprises, obtained from changes in interest rates futures in narrow windows around FOMC announcements, we isolate the increased access to high-yield bond markets relative to investment-grade bond markets that is due to unconventional monetary policy (UMP). We find that through the risk-taking channel, UMP has increased investors’ appetite for high-yield US corporate bonds, thereby increasing access to high-yield bond markets for firms with a higher risk profile. Since the relationship between credit ratings and firm-level productivity is U-shaped, the aggregate effect on productivity is a priori unclear. Turning to the real economy, we thus analyse whether this additional access to finance had an effect on aggregate productivity by altering the reallocation of resources across firms. Our results show that unconventional monetary policy induced less investment in tangible capital by high-productive firms. However, before drawing conclusions on the net effects of UMP on aggregate productivity, we discuss a number of issues that this paper could not deal with due to data limitations, including prominently whether this apparent misallocation may have been offset by a shift in the composition of investments towards more intangible investment.

This paper examines how the increase in under-employment since the financial crisis stems from both cyclical and structural factors, notably the gradual shift of employment toward more demand-driven service sectors. The increase in under-employment has disproportionately affected young, female and low-skilled workers, meaning that they face lower wage growth, particularly at the bottom of the income distribution.

This report presents a model that helps to better understand how consumers in France choose their cars. It presents the results for different scenarios for the future development of the French vehicle fleet and projections for related CO2 emissions to 2050. The model distinguishes conventional, plug-in hybrid, battery-electric and fuel cell cars. It looks at the privately-owned as well as company car fleets and considers non-monetary factors for vehicle choice. Among these are personal preferences, the availability of recharging infrastructure for electric vehicles, and policy incentives such as subsidies or preferential vehicle use rights. The methodology and the data used for this new passenger car fleet model are described in detail.

This paper uses “extreme-bound”-type analysis to revisit the determinants behind widely differing economic growth in Russian regions. Using data of 77 regions for 1993-2004, it separately examines the growth drivers for the phase of economic decline up to 1998, and for the period of strong growth afterwards. Looking at forty variables considered to be potentially related to growth, it determines, for each of the two periods, the ones robustly associated with Russian economic performance. Among the variables considered are proxies of politico-institutional features, indicators of economic reform, and measurements of both economic and non-economic initial conditions. The main findings, based on close to one million regressions, are as follows: during the period of economic decline up to 1998, differences in Russian regional growth were almost entirely driven by initial conditions, with resource and human capital endowments, industrial structure, and geographical location playing the dominant roles. However, since the 1998 crisis, the importance of initial conditions has declined significantly, and is now basically reduced to hydrocarbon wealth and advantageous geographical location. More reform-oriented policies, as well as better regional leadership are found to have come to make a significant difference. These results point to determinants of economic performance in periods of actual economic decline being quite different from those in “normal” times of economic growth.

The heterogeneity and highly diverse nature of the SMEs population represent a core challenge for SME policy frameworks. This paper discusses if and how typologies can help policy makers to better understand the wide diversity of SMEs and entrepreneurs. It proposes a policy perspective for analysing typologies, and reviews 169 typologies to assess their relevance for policy making. The paper presents a number of actionable typologies, as examples of how policy relevant SME and entrepreneurship typologies could be developed. The paper was developed in the context of the OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Strategy.

Gender is one of the key socio-demographic variables that can influence travel behaviour, but it is often the least understood. Understanding travel behaviour by gender will help better design transport policies that are efficient and equitable. Due to the gendered division of work in households, women often have multiple tasks and activities. As a result, women are more likely to have shorter commute distances, to chain trips, to have more non-work related trips, to travel at off-peak hours, and to choose more flexible modes. This study examines travel behaviour by gender in eight different cities, across three different continents, focusing on transport mode, trip purpose, travel distance and departure time for Auckland, Dublin, Hanoi, Helsinki, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Lisbon and Manila. The most common trends found in the cities are that women tend to travel shorter distances and prefer public transport and taxi services to cars more than men.

The health, social and economic consequences of poor mental health are substantial. More attention is focusing now on the development of actions to promote better mental health and wellbeing and prevent mental ill-health. This paper provides an overview of the development of approaches to promoting mental wellbeing and preventing mental ill-health in OECD countries, together with an assessment of what is known on their effectiveness and cost effectiveness. The paper finds that there is a sound and quite extensive evidence base for effective and cost effective actions which can promote mental wellbeing and prevent mental ill-health. However, the existence of actions and programmes in mental health promotion and prevention is uneven both between countries, and across different points of the life course. Many countries could stand to scale-up their promotion and prevention efforts in the mental health field, and further efforts are particularly needed to introduce interventions targeted at unemployed and older populations.